Shaped by War - Don McCullin

For my birthday last week I received Don McCullin's book Shaped by War.  I have to say that this book wasn't on my reading list but as it happens it tied in nicely with the reading I have been doing on documentary photography recently.  It was especially poignant in relation to peripateia and the decisive moment.  

I think everyone has heard of McCullin even those that are not very interested in photography.  I suppose he is a bit like David Bailey or Rankin in that respect.  However, his fame is based on his career as a war photographer who covered Vietnam, Biafra and the Congo wars to name a few.  What this book introduced me to is his work as a landscape and still life photographer a far cry from the battlefield he usually inhabits.  

Before reading this book I watched an interview he did with Michael Parkinson.  I found it interesting to hear him talk about his work and what motivated him to shoot wars.  I think we all have this image of war photographers being exceptionally brave, which indeed they are, but what we don't think about is their fears. McCullin was willing to talk about his fears and how scenes from the battlefield revisit him and have stayed with him over the years.  

He came across as frank and spoke candidly about how he got into photography.  It was interesting to read and hear him talk about the mistakes he made along the way and about his naivety.  He got his big break as a result of two deaths: one of a policeman stabbed to death at the bottom of his road and the other the hanging of the man convicted of the murder.  I would like to think that not every photographers entry into the world is as dramatic.  I wonder where McCullin would be if neither of those events happened.  

Unlike today McCullin seems to have been able to enter the world of photojournalism without much ado or that is the way it comes across.  I can't imagine that many of the remaining staff photographers at the nationals have much of a say in where they go and what they cover and an unlimited budget to do so.  How times change? 

The most disappointing thing about the book for me was that it was almost word for word the same as the Parkinson interview.  Had I not watched the interview I would have found it interesting and informative.  However, I had watched the interview and I wanted the book to give me more information which it failed to.  

The book didn't give too many insights into the way McCullin worked as a photographer from a technical point of view nor did it give any references to composition or what he would look for in a scene.  Perhaps like many photographers he likes to keep those secrets close to his chest or maybe its just not something he feels comfortable talking about.  Perhaps it's not really important.  

Overall I liked the images in the book even though some of them were quite disturbing.  I found his transition into colour interesting.  I think I have to agree with him when he says that black and white is a better medium for war images.  I prefer his black and white work to his colour work.  In many ways it is easier to view them in black and white because with the absence of colour you are shielded from the bloody scenes in front of you. 

The book is a fascinating insight into the mind of someone who has had a successful career spanning decades shooting some of the most horrifying scenes a person's eyes will ever witness.  It is about what made him continue working when the scenes unfolding in front of him brought him close to burnout.